ACMA cracks down on potential leaks

Summary:The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) today said it was talking to the Internet Industry Association (IIA) about what action it needed to take to make sure its blacklist stayed private under lock and key.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) today said it was talking to the Internet Industry Association (IIA) about what action it needed to take to make sure its blacklist stayed private under lock and key.

ACMA is discussing with the IIA what, if any, action it may need
to take to help ensure that ACMA's list remain secure

ACMA said it had provided its blacklist to 14 providers of
filter software, tested and accredited by the IIA, and would now be
looking to close any leaks.

"ACMA is discussing with the IIA what, if any, action it may need
to take to help ensure that ACMA's list remain secure," the
authority said in a statement. "ACMA considers that any
publication of the ACMA blacklist would have a substantial adverse
effect on the effective administration of the regulatory scheme
which aims to prevent access to harmful and offensive online
material."

"Such publication would undermine the public interest
outcomes which the current legislation aims to achieve." The IIA did not return requests for comment in time for this article.

ACMA echoed Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's comments that the list which has been
circulating today was not its own.

"The list provided to ACMA differs markedly in length and
format to the ACMA blacklist. The ACMA blacklist has at no stage
been 2,300 URLs in length and at August 2008 consisted of 1,061 URLs.
It is therefore completely inaccurate to say that the list of 2,300
URLs constitutes an ACMA blacklist," the authority said.

It warned those accessing and distributing the links that they
were committing an offence.

"Some of the URLs that remain active appear to relate to online
depictions of child sexual abuse. Possessing, distributing or
accessing such material may amount to an offence under the
Commonwealth Criminal Code and relevant state laws," the authority
said.

Suzanne Tindal cut her teeth at ZDNet.com.au as the site's telecommunications reporter, a role that saw her break some of the biggest stories associated with the National Broadband Network process. She then turned her attention to all matters in government and corporate ICT circles. Now she's taking on the whole gamut as news editor for t...
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